Tools, Dials & unexpected Levers

Fashion

For “Love at first sight“, we French say “Un coup de foudre” (a lightning strike), a clear metaphor? Bzam!! Like it?

We’ve all been there, I suppose : you walk your life seriously, and in a second you are suddenly, completely amazed by a face, a smile, someone. Look at you, now!…

If a love story ensues, well, you know… it doesn’t work “that” often. And many grown adults are very cautious with this love-at-first-sight thing. “Beware!”, says the 40 to the 20…

In a way, that’s pretty logical. Love at first sight means – and implies – you fell in love with… graphic proportions. You fell in love with some eyes, a mouth, a face… right?

And, well, graphic proportions are NOT a person.

OK. Yes. Right. But…

First of all, you can’t do nothing against a loveatfirstsightcrush. Just shut up and notice how stupid you become, haha.

So…

There’s a place where you’re a grown adult. You’ve been hurt by failures and break ups, blah blah blah, and you tend to think :

“As it ought to be, love at first sight is bullshite, therefore I should choose my lover with a good dose of reason”.

A person you appreciate “reasonably“, right?

Good!

But you grow more up. You gain experience. You’ve known many more people. Your brain is, like, trained to guess who is a person you meet. Watch her/him walk, talk, smile…

Voilà.

My theory here is : I am pretty sure that “Love at first sight”, when you’re 40 or 50, is more… accurate. You don’t fall in love in a second because of a smile, a winking eye, a silver voice. You DO, but because you guessfelt – much more : the rest of the person, the way (s)he talks, the way (s)he walks, stands up, questions you, looks at you. Energy.

You silly poor little brother, sister, you can’t resist (you will never be able to resist) to this “BAM!” feeling. Your whole personality seems to be ready to fall on your ass because of. That’s how we’re built, probably. There’s maybe an agent in our mind, doing this, keeping an eye out for…

Crush. Let go. Try to be smart, though. Hold on your wheel. Be happy. And if you’re not, you know, you have these “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” quotes, etc…

After all, maybe a good part of REASON is now incrusted, embedded into your loveatfirstsightness? It would be a strange effective braid, right?

Umberto Eco wrote an entire book about the idea of Open Work. I just present you here this idea, as a seed, that a “work” has an openness.

A work “appears” like this or like that, but has a number of ways of being read (seen, viewed, watched, decoded, interpreted, appreciated, contemplated, analyzed). This seems obvious for the sheet music, the score, or for a play, right?

There’s maybe an “obvious” openness, a prescribed way to read a work, but it can be a little more vague, like a set of possibilities – until complete crypticness : find what you can, if you dare to do it, then.

Some elements are often chosen by the artist to let the audience appropriate the work their way, but not “that” their way. Symbolic novels are obviously made for this purpose (Kafka is an example given by Eco).

Opened or not, some people do what they want with a piece of work. It’s a whole decision, it requires culture, or tools, or ways of finding things.

Some works, this way, can be enriched by a clever spectator, who would be delighted by elements, details, structures… the artist himself ignore!

In classical music or theater, there’s a place between the work (the score) and the audience. The players (or the actors) have a big role about “how they see it”. But after that level, the audience will also interpret things…

We probably want to find bonds between the work we study and our own searches, flaws, experiences…

Add yours in the comments, please?

Tool : If you work out of the “artistic field”, in blogging, marketing, conversation, fashion, coaching, I’m sure you consider many parameters. You can make a list, right? Timeline, colours, variety, energy, waits, etc, there are many levers to pull. But have you considered the “openness” of what you propose?

Watching the bubbles at the surface of the sea ? One day you realise you could choose to go under the surface, watch the demons acting freely outside of “what the medias organize for you”, explore unknown paths and territories, etc, etc. Turning awayyyyy…

Dial to watch : Autonomie Culturelle.

Tool : Unhook yourself from reacting. Close the usual sources. Just fly away from this. If it’s tatoo time, write about oboes. If there’s a new pop group to listen, document about John Ford movies. If you wonder about the Apple watch, go try the South West of France Art of Cooking. Draw YOUR paths. And yes : you’ll be alone. Yes yes yes yes yes. So what ? Et alors ??

Luxury is Insular.

Breathe ! Stand up. Go away from reacting. Take your machete and dig your way into YOUR jungle. It’s DJ time ? Listen to King Crimson. Fashion Blogs ? Write on paper. To a unique penpal.

“Luxury is insular”. Jünger wrote it that way. I like it. Pensez-y : Le luxe est insulaire…

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

Young and passionate, here you are.

You want to express yourself, prove something to the world. You’re an artist, an architect, a designer, une personne créative !

While you learn your art and its rules, your energy is growing and you feel powerful. You want and need to unfold into that. Your ideas and your way of organizing them are boiling into your brain. Projects…

Then, one day you discover the enthusiastic possibility of doing something “real”. You begin your new professional life ! Congratulations ! Bravo mon ami(e) ! Money is provided and you will prove your talents.

Disillusions will rain on you, c’est inévitable vous savez, but that’s a topic for another article. You’ll do your thing, nevertheless.

If you’re smart (and you ARE smart, aren’t you?) you can guess what the : “Two Many Ideas from a Beginner” Syndrome is. You want to do well, so you literally pour out everything that’s boiling in your head into your first project. Ça dépote !

You know that “less is more” and that great artists are doing great things in simple form, at the same time, you are young and you WANT to express yourself. C’est compréhensible…

A matter of levers again, the “double bind” kind.

If you let go, the result will be great, BUT (and this “but” gets interesting here) you will get little smiles from connoisseurs. And you will hate it because :

1/ You know they’re right… too much all at once.

2/ You quickly realize that one day, in a few years, you’ll look at your work with that same funny smile. Effff !…

Too Many Ideas

Let go. You can’t do anything else and you can’t and mustn’t restrain the energy of youth. You go girl (or boy) ! Later on, you’ll learn how to put these ideas into wise and powerful furrows and choose keys on the keyboard (but not “all the keys” on your keyboard) to make your Art more effective… it will just happen at a later time.

Tool:

It’s an amusing tool and a subtle one. Just keep in mind the, “Two Many Ideas from a Beginner” Syndrome. It’s like a little wave, a mini-thread to keep some ideas for later.